


the end of the world

by absopositivelutely



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: M/M, but enjoy, i'm such lams trash, idk what this angsty drabble is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 18:09:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14062512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absopositivelutely/pseuds/absopositivelutely
Summary: the end of the world, it turns out, is hard to define.(he thinks john's death is pretty close, though.)





	the end of the world

**Author's Note:**

> i should be finishing my other hamilton fic but you know what? i will always give in to writing unnecessary lams angst.

alexander had always wondered what the end of the world would be like. he had said so to john, who had laughed and reassured him that it would never happen in their lifetime. alex leaned over to rest his head on john’s shoulder and looked up at the stars above their heads and smiled. he was content.  
  
he read the letter and it wasn’t the end of the world. but when he closes his eyes he can still feel john’s lips on his, and he wonders if this is what the end tastes like.  
  
the universe has a cruel sense of humor sometimes.

 

* * *

 

alex was supposed to die. he’d survived his father, had survived the hurricane, had survived the handful of days he’d disappeared from camp and everyone had presumed him dead. alex was the one who’d looked death in the eye and challenged him.  
  
he could outrun death, but death demands a price. he has never known the price. not until death takes it.  
  
his cheeks are still dusted with the freckles alex loved, but they are cold and fragile and pale. they hold none of the warmth and softness and brightness they always did, and he knows that the man lying in the coffin is john but it does not look like him. perhaps this is what the end looks like.  
  
john had never needed to run. death ran faster.

 

* * *

 

john had promised him whispers of the ocean captured in the shells he held to his ear. alex had looked at him and brushed his lips against john’s ear and whispered that maybe he’d hear his words too. john’s breath was quiet and it trembled as alex’s lips ghosted across john’s cheek.  
  
alex only hears a phantom of john’s ragged breathing echoing in his ears. no ocean, no words. and then, later, he hears nothing. only it isn’t nothing, there’s something there, but it is a song of loneliness; the sound of silence. the ringing of your ears when there is nobody there.  
  
he thinks that maybe this is what the end sounds like. he doesn’t like it much.  
  
it cannot replace john’s peals of laughter, john’s low murmurs laced with a suggestive grin, john’s tired smirk paired with a voice rough with sleep.  
  
a song of silence is as empty as the promises of whispers when there is no one there.

 

* * *

 

alex always woke up with an arm draped across his chest, his hands tangled in curly brown hair. john’s breath is cool and sweet as he leans his forehead against alex’s, their lips just barely touching. good morning, john would greet him, and alex would bury his face in john’s neck, the smell of warmth and comfort and home enveloping him.  
  
the scent of forest air and cold streams and damp soil would linger long after he left the bed, and alex would press his nose into john’s pillow. john smelled like everything that was life. that is what convinces alex that he is truly gone. when he visits the laurens family and steps into john’s room for the first time, it smells clean and crisp and there is no lingering warmth.  
  
this must be what the end smells like. it reminds him of the unsettlingly bleached white sheets of the beds after those who slept in it had died in the war.  
  
there is no life in that. it has been stripped away.

 

* * *

 

john’s arms were warm and alex never wanted to leave. his shirt was soft and his hair was silken and curled between his fingers and his lips seared a mark into his skin.  
  
the letter crinkles in his hands and he runs his fingers over the ink stains and the rough scratches from the quill. he knows these condolences are well meant but paper cannot replace love. it cannot come close, but it is a small piece of reassurance.  
  
he turns the letter over and over in his hands, and when he walks up to the coffin to say goodbye, whatever that means, its surface is cool and hard and unyielding, unfazed by the tears dripping from his cheeks. he kneels and throws an arm across the coffin, ignoring how unnatural it feels. that is how the end feels, after all.  
  
in another time, another place, he would’ve sold his soul if he could touch his fingertips to that constellation of freckles one last time. now, though, he doesn’t think he wants to.  
  
cold only brings disappointment, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments always appreciated :)


End file.
